The Bad Times
by PhoenixSongs
Summary: "They've said terrible, painful things to one another; things they have meant. So they abandon meaning, and meaning abandons them in the same manner." A two shot that has no roots or explanation. Just the pure depression and angst of inescapable love.
1. She

Sometimes she thinks she hates him.

Sometimes she even believes it.

They fight. About everything, rather than anything.

They fight about thing that don't matter, things that don't mean anything.

The toilet seat, money, work, time, drink, groceries, jealousy,

Neither is angry, but they fight in fury none the less.

Anger is an emotion that they can control quite well.

But meaning…

Meaning hurts.

They've said terrible, painful things to one another; things they _have_ meant.

So they abandon meaning, and meaning abandons them in the same manner.

When things get worse and when they sit at home in silence she sometimes thinks of another boy.

She feels nothing for him of course; never has and never will.

But she feels regret when she thinks of him.

He was nice, just… nice. Shimmery gold hair, baby blue eyes, chubby face, his warm varsity jacket that he would hang around her shoulders.

She recalls a bad movie, a disappointing dinner, and a sloppy first kiss that was never repeated.

She did not love that blonde boy. Not at all.

But sometimes she thinks what life may have become if she had loved him.

Blonde haired, blue eyes children. A big house with a picket fence. And a kiss when he came home.

Would it have been better?

She wants to say yes. That the much easier option would have been better.

But she knows in her heart rather than her head that she wouldn't trade all the bad times - the fights, the names, the put downs, the screaming. The hatred, the pain, the lies and the numbness.

She would trade not one singular second of those awful times,

Not when she had gotten the good times as a trade off.

The sweet kisses, the sunny days, his crooked smile and his soft hands.

She knows in her head she probably hates him.

But she knows her heart will never stop loving him.

But when he looks at her with his green eyes; no anger held within just this once.

She is drawn back in, as always. And she approaches desperatly, placing a kiss on his mouth, and kissing his creased temple, where the regret of a great many years is situated.

She feels it melt away, his eyes close and she follows.

They aren't He and She anymore.

They're Edward and Bella again. High school sweethearts, filled with certainty of happiness.

And it is lingering, because both know it won't last.


	2. He

It's been so long that they can hardly remember what it means to mean anything that is not directed in pure cruelty.

He regales a boy like she does; much younger, with bronze hair, a freckled face, and meeting the pretty brunette in the usual way,

alongside that he recalls jealously when he sees her with the blonde, followed by punching him, hard, in his chubby face and the butterflies he felt when the pretty brunette tried to hide a smirk when she washed the blood from his knuckles.

He would almost relish the chance of violence now.

Though his reasoning is flimsy and he barely understands it himself.

He wants to hurt the people that could take her from him, though those people gave up a long time ago when he dragged her down.

Maybe he just wants to feel her soft hands smoothing out his inadequacies and mistakes and making it all right.

But there is no one - not one person - he can hurt - or blame or despise or scream at or massacre - when he isn't hurting her so instead he keeps doing it, even though every word he says makes him more the villain and more the demon and more the devil that he hates even more so than Mike.

She follows his example of course - and soon she learns to be cutting and cruel and emotionless when she is screaming and weeping and dying inside just the same as he is.

When she used to cry he would comfort her,

When he felt like a failure - as he often did - she would always fix it and life would seem better for his mistakes.

Shit happened.

Shit changed things.

Now when she cries he ignores it.

And when he feels as though life is just a mess she simply backs those theories.

Both are just hiding behind thinly constructed glass coffins within a millisecond of shattering and they both know this all too well: though they both vaguely remember a time when caring was something exciting and sweet and soft, rather than the rancid thing to be feared, rather than revered and hailed.

That was before things went to hell and before they had time to stop it, of course.

How long has it been since life was normal?

Normal dates with normal dinners and staple kisses and real giggles,

Movies with bad lines and worse actors, and atrocious puns.

_Puns. _

He misses puns.

That surprises him.

But they don't go to movies anymore.

They don't go anywhere any more.

They don't even talk anymore.


End file.
